The Escalation Of New York Real Estate Over A Century

Properties Priced For Thousands In 1790 & Their Steady Climb In Value Through 1889

Currently what does $250 million buy for you in New York City? The asking price is not for an entire block, apartment complex, building or townhouse.

It is the price for the most expensive home in the city; a 17,565 square foot seven bedroom penthouse apartment at Central Park Tower 217 West 57th Street.

In an 1889 Harper’s Weekly article, Scott Thompson delved into the early days of Manhattan real estate. In 1790 most of the homes, the farms and empty acres in New York City were worth a few hundred dollars. The very valuable properties had dollar values in the thousands, rarely exceeding $10,000.

$10,000 was an enormous amount of money when you consider a laborer’s wages in 1790 were between 16 to 47 cents per day.  Artisans, teachers and tradesmen would earn more, but anyone earning over $200 during a year was better off than many of his fellow New Yorkers.

A bushel of corn was 45 cents; butter 12 cents per pound; beef five cents per pound; a barrel of flour was $5; while a cow cost $25.

Housing costs, depending upon your financial circumstances, ranged from three to five dollars per month. But for those who could afford it, owning and then making improvements upon raw land would cost at least $60 an acre.

Manhattan land speculation has always held an attraction for those looking to ascend in wealth and power.

Today nearly every Manhattan standard 25 by 100 foot lot is worth millions of dollars. In highly desirable neighborhoods a small parcel of lots can sell for tens of millions.

Thompson tells how from 1790 through 1889 property values along Broadway would increase tenfold or more. Now in 2023, Manhattan land is in some cases a hundred times more valuable than its 1889 price.

Prime Broadway Property Gains During A Century

In 1790 Robert Livingston, one of the five authors of the Declaration of Independence, was living in a $12,000 house at 9 Broadway. By 1889 the then ancient house which replaced Livingston’s was still worth $150,000.

A few doors away at 21 Broadway, John Stevens owned a house and an adjoining property with a $15,000 value. The Stevens House, an early high class hotel, was later put up on the site and in 1889 was worth $250,000. (The hotel remained until 1919.)

Number 26 was Alexander Hamilton’s house, value $10,000. The Standard Oil Company’s building, worth $1,250,000 would later occupy that terrain.

Number 35 was the elegant house of merchant and art patron, Dominick Lynch with a value of $17,000; it would accrue to $200,000. 36 Broadway, Peter Jay Munro, value $8000; increased to $160,000.  37 Broadway belonging to John Lawrence, value in 1790 $12,000; worth $200,000 in 1889.  At 47 Broadway was the luxurious house of Alexander McComb, which was occupied briefly by President George Washington was worth $25,000; in 1889 its value was $300,000.

A steep increase in profit was for 67 Broadway, Colonel Harry Livingston’s house. Value for this 55 by 180 foot lot was $12,000. In 1889 a part of the site extending to the corner of Rector Street, was worth $800,000.

The Center Of The Financial District

Not yet the nation’s financial center, Wall Street was lined with homes in 1790. The property values along Wall Street would leap over the next 100 years.

When listing prices, the first is the 1790 value, followed by the 1889 value.

In 1790 residents of Wall Street included at number 6, James Constable, $15,000; 1889 – $400,000. Number 7, William Edgar, $12,000, the St. Nicholas Bank later occupying the property – $250,000. Number 10, William Denning, $8000; later occupied by the Astor Building, – $500,000.

40 Wall Street, Abraham Duryee, $8000, increased to $550,000. Number 41, William Jauncey, $8000, up to $450,000. Number 45 belonging to Edward Livingston, $9000, – $600,000. Thomas Buchanan’s property at 46 Wall Street $12,000; later occupied by the Bank of America was worth about $600,000.

Big Parcels Of Land

There was no grid or street plan a mile above City Hall until the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan to lay out streets. It would be years before many of the streets above Greenwich Village were cut through and opened. The following areas are the modern equivalent of what existed in 1790. Each of these estates described comprise land parcels that would equal billions of dollars today.

The vast Stuyvesant Farm ran from Fifth Street and the Bowery up to 25th Street and Third Avenue plus all the property east of these boundries up to the river. It’s an area of about 90 city blocks. This land originally belonging to Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant was far outside the populated city in 1651. In 1790 there were two residences housing Stuyvesant’s descendants on the $60,000 estate belonging to Nicholas William and Peter Gerard Stuyvesant. Most portions of the original estate were sold over the intervening years realizing large profits for the owners. By 1889 the remaining Stuyvesant property was under the stewardship of the Fish, Rutherford and Winthrop families.

Samuel Kip, the namesake of the Kip’s Bay neighborhood, had a farm stretching from 25th Street to 37th Street and Third Avenue to the East River. Including Kip’s residence, the entire 26 block parcel was given a $12,000 value in 1790. 21 years later the city purchased six acres of Kip’s farm for $3,500 per acre.

An estate of 30 acres with a stone house at modern day 61st Street off of First Avenue was owned by Colonel William S. Smith and his wife Abigail, the daughter of President John Adams.

This property was estimated to be worth $20,000 in 1800, but by then Smith had lost ownership of the land before the buildings were completed. The half finished buildings were taken over by merchant William T. Robinson. The original house burned down in 1826 and the surviving structure on the property became The Mount Vernon Hotel. The estate was sold off in pieces. But, incredibly the house remains standing and is open for tours run by The Colonial Dames Of America.

The West Side

As the city kept pushing uptown, developers and speculators were looking for the next desirable residential neighborhoods. The area north of 59th Street and west of the future Central Park saw the most activity and rise in value in the eighteen seventies and eighties according to Thompson.

In 1790 the land in this area was mostly farms and country seats of the wealthy. A person could purchase land in this remote part of the city for $50 an acre. The estates of some of the major land holders were the Harsen, Apthorpe, Vandenheuvel and Somerindyke families.

By 1810 these and similar properties were worth $200 an acre, By 1825 $400 an acre. In 1889 lots were selling for $15,000 on cross streets and a 25 foot corner lot n 72nd Street and Riverside Drive was $50,000.

“Could I begin life again knowing what I now know and had money to invest, I would buy every foot of land on the island of Manhattan.”- John Jacob Astor

If there ever was a king of New York real estate it was John Jacob Astor (1763-1848). Astor bought land, usually never building upon it. Later in life he would rarely sell land, but lease the property and then, when the lease was up, raise the rent or buy what his tenants constructed and then rent the buildings out.

Early in his real estate career Astor’s tried and proven method for profit was to use his mercantile profits and purchase land further and further outside the developed city limits.

It is untrue that Astor would not sell property. As the price advanced on his current properties Astor would relinquish the land to buy larger tracts of land uptown.

In 1810 Astor sold a lot near Wall Street for $8,000 which the purchaser thought was bargain. He told Mr. Astor that in a few years this property would be worth $12,000, a 50 percent increase. Astor replied, “Yes. But with the $8,000, I will buy 80 lots above Canal Street and by that time my lots will be worth $80,000.”

It’s no wonder Astor became America’s first millionaire.